Cripple
by Aurora Borealia
Summary: First ever fanfic! John is upset about all the things being a cripple prevents him from doing, but then he meets Sherlock Holmes and that all goes away. Not a great summary, sorry. John/Sherlock slash. Rated T for mild violence, language and slash writing
1. Chapter 1: Born to Run

**_So, this is my first ever fanfic posted to this website. I wasn't sure if I liked the whole John/Sherlock pairing, but I read some other fics featuring it and loved them, so decided to give it a go on my own. I love the new version of "Sherlock" and really enjoyed writing this. I'd love to hear back from you all on review, so please don't be shy! Hope you enjoy! - AB_**

Chapter 1 - Born to Run

Some people said John Watson missed the war. Others say the war was what had screwed him up so much. Other said he wasn't screwed up at all, that it was just his mind telling him he had issues. But one thing was for sure, John Watson hated being disabled. Most people don't particularly like being handicapped, but to John it was like torture. But worse than the pain and stiffness in his damn leg was the way people treated him for it. Words couldn't explain how sick John was of being embarrassed by the thing. He hated the shame he felt whenever he got on a bus and people, seeing his limp and cane, immediately scrambled up to offer him a seat. He hated the way cabbies would attempt to help him get out of the back of a cab or when hotel managers would offer him rooms closest to the elevators.

And then there where times when his leg got particularly painful or his moods got significantly worse that John thought that perhaps maybe he did miss the war because at least in the deserts of Afghanistan, everyone looked at him like a soldier and not a cripple. Just thinking about how people must saw him made John's face go hot with embarrassment. Every time he took one of those seats on the bus, he'd burry his face and wish people would stop treating him differently than anyone else. And then he met Sherlock Holmes.

There was no denying it, as most people had warned him, Sherlock Holmes was borderline crazy. For god sakes, he had literally only just met John, spoken maybe two words to him and in five seconds flat asked "Afghanistan or Iraq?" But despite his crazy tendencies ("Sherlock, what the hell is that in our microwave?" "Oh that? That's a jar of human eyeballs.") or the fact that everyone seemed to think John was his date, John actually liked the time he spent around Sherlock because Sherlock actually treated him like a person, not a cripple with some dog tags and months of emotional baggage.

John had no idea what kept him coming back to Sherlock. He "got off" on solving murders, frequently called everyone else around him stupid and many people constantly pointed out that he was a psychopath or could potentially be a killer when he get bored. But Sherlock didn't make excuses for John like everyone else did. In their first case, which John had taken to calling "A Study in Pink", the two tailed a subject across several London blocks on foot. When Sherlock had ordered him to get up and start running, there was part of John that wanted to protest, "But me leg! I can't!", but his better half won out as he jumped up and took off behind him.

And that cane? Yeah, he forgot all about that as he was tearing up stairs and vaulting over cars, each time he slowed down just a bit Sherlock pressuring him, "Come on, John! We're losing him!" And the strangest strange thing was…John actually had found it kind of fun. The event has made the two men smile when they thought of how incredibly absurd it was that they had run through several London city blocks to chase a cab. Sherlock always enjoyed bringing up how John had not needed his cane at all while running and suggesting maybe John "got off" on solving the cases more than he did.

So that's how John got roped up into Sherlock's craziness and why he continued to help him solve crimes. He forgot about his pain when he was keeping himself busy. He had even cut his therapy visits down to once a week. He hadn't limped in days after their first case, which Sherlock gleefully said proved definitively that his limp was in fact psychosomatic. John conceded to this argument, just happy that if it was in fact all in his head, he wasn't really as damaged as everyone said he was. And this made him happy. So, he stayed around, because he enjoyed having Sherlock as a friend (John guessed they where kind of like friends…) and he felt that the two men helped each other more than with just solving cases and paying rent.

"John, it's your turn to suggest something to do today."

John looked up from his book for the first time in a while. Sherlock had been so engrossed in some study that John had almost forgotten he was in the flat. Now Sherlock was up and pacing the floor hyperactively, knotting a blue scarf around his neck.

"I don't suppose just staying home and reading is an acceptable answer, is it?" John asked with a sigh. He had gone through this routine a thousand times already within a few short weeks. One of the problems of living with a self-proclaimed "highly functioning sociopath" was that boredom was an intolerable option.

At John's words, Sherlock stopped his pacing and stared at John in disbelief.

"'Just stay home and _read_'?" he repeated in disbelief, in a tone very similar to the way most people would say, "You hide _what_ in your sock drawer?" or "You're running a _ponsi scheme_?"

John nodded simply with a brief, "Mm-hm" before looking back down at his book.

Above him, he knew Sherlock was still hovering around in shocked boredom, hopping John would come up with anything clever for him to embark on.

"You could have taken that diamond heist case Lestrade offered you last week, but no. You didn't want to take it, so it's not my fault you're bored now."

"Ugh." Sherlock replied, rolling his eyes disapprovingly, "Diamond heists are so boring. They always end the same and are far too easy to crack."

"So, diamond heists are boring, but here you are pacing around the flat being bored? Where's the logic in that one?" John asked, looking up from his book, "At least in one we would have gotten paid to be bored."

Sherlock took a pause as if to analyze the validity of John's argument before saying,

"Oh, shut up. My motives are mine and mine alone."

John put his book down and began leafing through the paper, using today's front page article to hid the smile playing across his face at this simple win. He scanned for a few seconds for something to do that day that might end Sherlock's annoying boredom.

"Here's something." John chimed in, Sherlock perking up at this mention, "There's an art gallery not far from here. An up-and-coming young artist is displaying some of her works. Isla Higgins, I've heard of her. She's suppose to be pretty good."

Sherlock rolled his eyes once again, that chipper, excited look at the prospect of having something to do evaporating.

"Ugh, art. I never understood the use of art or moreover the purpose of wandering around bare, stuffy galleries to look at art."

"Well, it's beautiful." John said, "It's suppose to be recreational to walk around and looked at them and, you know, spend time with people."

Strangely, John had almost added, "spend time with me", but caught the words before they came out of his mouth. Not sure why that thought crossed his mind, he shook his head a small bit to regain composure and listened as Sherlock replied,

"But with art, there's no rhyme or reason to it. No purpose behind what's going on on the canvas or anything to analyze."

"Just a suggestion." John said, turning the paper over and crossing art galleries off the list of things Sherlock dubbed appropriate to combat boredom.

Just as Sherlock walked over to the mantle to grab his skull, before remembering with an air of sadness that it was no longer there, a faint wailing of sirens was heard in the distance. John pricked his ears.

"Are those…" he began to ask

"…police sirens?" Sherlock finished for him, brightening again.

In less than five minutes, the wailing became louder and then stopped as Detective Inspector Lestrade pulled up in front of the flat and got out of the car.

"Must be something good," Sherlock observed happily as Lestrade walked up the stairs into the complex, "otherwise he wouldn't have come to get me."

John cast aside his newspaper as he waited for Lestrade to come in through the open door. The second he appeared in the door, Sherlock practically jumped on him.

"What have you got for me?" he demanded as Lestrade nodded politely to John who nodded back.

Art theft…" Lestrade began, hands in his pockets.

Sherlock sighed and began to walk away before Lestrade added,

"I'm not finished. Murder case, too. The artist who's painting where stolen turned up dead in her flat this morning. We think it may be the high profile thief we caught from the Andredie Diamond Heist Case."

"Yeah, I read about that in the papers." John said with an annoyed look at Sherlock. That was in fact the case Sher had turned down last week, "You think it was Rhys Nathans? How is that possible, I heard they just put him away?"

"Nobody reported seeing him the night of the murder and the heist was just his style. We're looking in to see if there may have been any way of him getting out and any motive for him stealing the paintings. Want the case?" Lestrade turned now to Sherlock.

"Yes. Who's the artist?" Sherlock asked, finally finding a combat for boredom.

"A young woman. She just opened up a gallery not to long ago."

John and Sherlock exchanged a knowing look.

"I don't suppose her name's Isla Higgins, is it?" John asked.

"Yeah, how'd you know? Did you see the exhibit?" Lestrade asked.

"Well, we certainly aren't going to be seeing it now." John replied, but Lestrade retorted,

"You may still. The artwork that was getting ready to go in the exhibit was what was stolen at Isla's flat."

**_Hopefully that was a good start for chapter 1! I'm still finishing up and checking chapter 2, but with any luck it will be up in a few days!_**


	2. Chapter 2: Non Emotional Dealing

**_Okay, so here is chapter 2! Sorry, it took me a bit longer than I expected to get this together, but at least there's a lot of it! Oh, and I forgot to say this earlier! DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Sherlock or any characters. They belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the show is now that of the BBC. The only characters of my own creation are some of those in the case, such as Isla Higgins and Rhys Nathans. This is just for fun, not profit. Hope you enjoy! ;) - AB_**

Chapter 2 - Non-emotional Dealing

Sherlock and John followed behind in a cab a few minutes later after Sherlock had had an appropriate amount of time for jumping around in excitement over the new case. When the two joined Lestrade inside the woman's stylish, expensive-looking flat, John looked down at the body in the center of the room.

"Blunt force trauma to the back of the head." he said automatically upon looking at Isla Higgins, on her stomach with her legs wrapped up in her skirt as though it was a snake.

"Signs of a struggle." Sherlock chimed in, slipping on a pair of latex gloves and John nodded in agreement.

John bent over in front of Isla's body as Sherlock crossed over to the opened vault where some of the artwork had clearly been stored. He could see that his first suspicions were correct, seeing a small section of blood mattered into Isla's well-kept thick, black hair.

'Doesn't look like he came at her with a object." John said, looking up, "More like he slammed her against a wall. Can you find out where, please?" he turned to Lestrade.

"Oh, because I suppose I work for you now." he said, half kidding and half serious before he turned and walked out of the main room to find which wall Isla had been hit against.

As the clacking of Lestrade's shoes on the linoleum faded, Sherlock looked up from the safe and motioned for John to come over.

"Anything?" John asked as he walked over to face the empty safe.

"What do you observe?" Sherlock replied, lacing his long fingers together.

"I'm not playing this game right now. Can you just tell me what you see?"

Sherlock sighed as though this were a great insult and turned back to the safe.

"There are no fingerprints anywhere, but there is also not any latex powder, so he didn't use gloves or his hands. However, there are some traces of iron metal on the electronic buttons in the front, so he must have pressed it with something."

John nodded, but didn't say his usual, "That's incredible". Either he was use to it already or he was mad for some reason. Most likely the latter, but Sherlock didn't press the matter.

"Did you find anything?" Sherlock finally asked after several seconds in which he seemed to be looking for something playing across John's features.

"Um, yeah." John said, looking back to face the body, "Small amount of blood on the head, but no visible traces of glass or any other materials. So, I don't think he hit her with something. More like he hit her head against a wall."

As if to answer his words, Lestrade re-entered the room and shook his head.

"No traces of blood on the wall and no traces of any having been scrubbed off."

John looked up at Lestrade in confusion.

"No, that doesn't work. Why wouldn't there be blood on the walls? Or at least on something nearby?"

"He was very thorough," Sherlock said, crossing over to peer at the body, "If he did leave any trace of himself, he wanted to make sure we wouldn't find it."

He took a pause, and then shook his head as though conceding to an argument.

"Well, actually no. He wanted to make sure _you_ wouldn't find it," he said, indicating Lestrade with a tilt of his head, "I'm a different story."

"Thanks." Lestrade chimed in sarcastically.

Sherlock nodded and continued to look around the body for any clues.

"So, did you find anything else so far?" John asked Lestrade.

"Actually yes. Back in the bedroom hallway I found a mark while looking for any blood on the walls. It's Nathans's mark."

"Nathans's mark? Sorry, I don't quite follow." asked John, shaking his head.

"Whenever Rhys Nathans steals something, he leaves a mark somewhere. It's usually a very tiny carving of his initials. Here, look."

John leaned in as Lestrade pulled up a picture on his Blackberry.

"This is a picture from the Andredie Diamond Heist." he said, pointing to a small mark in the picture that was carved in the wall next to an expensive looking mirror. "It matches this one," he continued, showing John a picture of another mark, most likely from the bedroom hallway.

John inspected the mark. The letters "R" and "N" where carved carefully in the wall, the two letters almost overlapping. The leg of the "R" came down into a sharp point with jagged "X" markings across it.

"Can you send me the two photos?" Sherlock asked from across the room where he was busy taking photos of the crime scene with his own mobile.

Lestrade nodded and began clicking on the phone to get his email up. John stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, waiting for the two other men to finish their technological exchange.

"So what did you find Sherlock, anything?" Lestrade asked finally while finishing up sending the photos.

Sherlock's phone chimed from across the room as he received the incoming email. Without his attention on his phone, Sherlock finally looked up and repeated the information he had told John about the safe. While he spoke, John crossed over to behind the body, still turning over in his mind the fact that there was no blood anywhere.

"Anything else?" came Lestrade's voice, jolting John out of his thoughts.

Sherlock bent over the vault and pointed. John could almost see the gears working in his head.

"Yes. See the dust imprints? This is where Isla kept the artwork no doubt. There are several careful scuff marks in the dust where the paintings, at least six of them, where carefully removed. Clearly they where taken by someone who the value of them because of how frequently they stopped and started dragging them out."

"Well, that proves it then. It had to be Nathans. He's an art thief, so he obviously knows how valuable these paintings are." Lestrade pointed out.

But Sherlock's eyes where already darting back and forth, putting all the puzzle pieces together in his head,

"No, that's not it. There's over two thousand dollars worth of jewelry sitting in the bookshelf. A thief like Nathans would have grabbed that too along with any other things he could find. Why did this killer just go for the artwork?"

"Time factor?" John suggested, speaking for the first time in a while.

"No, see here." Sherlock disagreed once more and pulled something gently out of the safe.

"What's that?" Lestrade asked, leaning over.

"Isla Higgins' programme from the upcoming exhibit. This is where she kept all the information on the paintings in the safe. It's got the painting titles, descriptions, mediums used and painting ID number. If time had been a factor, he wouldn't have looked through it."

"Who says he looked through it?"

Sherlock stared at Lestrade incredulously.

"My God, what's the purpose of wasting eyes on you people if you don't _see_ things? Look at the corners, they're bent. This was Isla's life work, she wouldn't have treated the programme like that so clearly it's been rifled through by someone else. In addition, latex gloves would have snagged on the corners and bent them down like so."

"So, what does that mean?" John asked from the corner, "Why would someone go through the programme like that?"

"I don't know," Sherlock admitted, turning back to the safe, "Let me think."

Similar to how he always thought, Sherlock began pacing the room and muttering to himself. Out of fear of being barked, neither John nor Lestrade said a word.

"Hm…blood on the body, but no blood on the wall." he said quietly, tapping his fingers and moving around to look at the body, "That's interesting."

John cocked his head and study Sherlock intently while he rounded the body again and again. After the first time he seemed to have a break through.

"Oh! You're right, John!" he breathed, turning to John.

"Thanks," John said confusedly, "but what am I right on?"

"You're right about her being hit against the wall, but you're also wrong."

"Right then, I take my 'thanks' back. What am I wrong on if I'm right about her being slammed against the wall?"

"She _was_ hit against the wall," continued Sherlock, looking thrilled, "but that's not what killed her. She was hit with something heavy. Something that wouldn't be traced but something heavy enough to kill her."

"Sherlock," John said gingerly, worried he might break a valuable thought process, "Remember you where looking for something he may have pressed the safe keys with?"

Sherlock seemed confused at first before realization dawned in his eyes.

"He could have used the same object for both!"

John nodded and Sherlock whipped around.

"Right," he said, "We're looking for an object that has to have all of these three things: One, it has to be a heavy enough object to kill, but not leave a trace and tiny enough to fit the wound. Two, it has to be metal. And three, something that could press the safe buttons but not sharp since there where no marks on the keys."

Begrudgingly, Lestrade began to search around with John. He seemed to not be enjoying taking orders from the pair of them. After a few minutes of looking, John's eyes fell upon a table not far away from Isla's body. On it sat two iron candelabras, each with three prongs at the top used to hold the candle in place. John grabbed a latex glove and carefully picked the possible murder weapon up. It seemed heavy enough.

"Is this it?" he asked, jarring Sherlock out of deep thought.

"Yes, that's perfect." he said, rushing over.

He grabbed it hastily out of John's hand, the momentary brush of glove upon glove causing John to jump.

"Yes, yes. This is it. Lestrade, I think this is your murder weapon."

"I'll run it for prints." Lestrade said, walking over to take the candelabra. Sherlock, however, quickly moved it out of his reach.

"He's not going to be that stupid as to leave his prints on the thing. He used gloves and then bleached the weapon for good measure."

"So great, still no prints. Let me take it down to evidence anyway."

Lestrade bagged the candelabra tersely, obviously not happy about having no fingerprints and no other definitive results.

"So, what do we have so far?" he asked, setting the evidence bag down gently in his briefcase.

Sherlock's eyes flashed as he looked around the room.

"Well, we know the dead woman's name is Isla Higgins and she was an artist with an upcoming exhibit. She was killed by being hit with an iron candelabra which was also used to open the safe. You think that Rhys Nathans is the killer."

"And you don't?" Lestrade asked, arms folded.

"No, 'course I don't. He was in jail. Pretty good alibi."

"But you said whoever removed the paintings knew their value," John broke in, shrugging, "Nathans is an art thief, clearly he'd know. Lestrade brought that up before."

"No, no, no." Sherlock said, almost chastising, "Had Nathans been here, he would have cased the place. He wouldn't have wasted his time on grabbing the art, he would have gone for everything else. Besides, murder doesn't seem like Nathans's style."

Lestrade shrugged "Could have panicked."

"Then why leave the mark?" Sherlock wondered and suddenly his eyes got bright with knowing, "Yes, whoever killed Isla clearly knew she would be here, clearly intended for whatever reason to kill her and plant it on Nathans."

"But who would do that? Any other suspects?" John asked, turning to Lestrade, who simply shook his head "no".

"I have no idea who would have done it or why, but I know they did plant it on Nathans." Sherlock said and then went back to thinking again.

After what seemed like ages, Sherlock clapped unexpectedly.

"Oh my God! I see it!"

"What do you see, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked impatiently.

"I said it myself," Sherlock continued, "Nathans isn't a killer. If he would have killed Isla it would have most likely been an accident, but no, this person went to lengths to cover it up. They clearly meant to do it, but not be found."

"I don't follow." John said, still peering at the wound on Isla's head as if something on it had changed to hold all their clues.

"Of course you don't." Sherlock said, "That's why I'm showing you."

John rolled his eyes as Sherlock crossed over to stand beside him.

"Remember how you said you couldn't find blood anywhere?"

John nodded.

"That's because we weren't looking in the right spot. It was right here."

"What?"

"Whoever killed Isla wanted to cover it up. He wasn't scrubbing any fingerprints off the murder weapon, he was scrubbing off blood. And after he had killed her, he planted blood on the wall to make it seem like _that's_ what killed her. It's a red herring!"

"But why plant blood on the wall just to scrub it off again?" he asked, pressing himself close to the wall. Now that he was right on top of it, he could smell the faint trace of bleach against the paint and see the slight discoloration.

"He wanted to make it seem like Nathans was the killer and _did_ slam her against the wall. Throw off two traces at once: murderer and murder weapon."

"You're right. Whoever killed her intended to kill her all along. That's why he had so much time to make the mark in the wall and clean off the blood. But who's to say it's not Nathans?"

At this point, John and Sherlock where talking among themselves, completely shutting Lestrade out of the conversation.

"Rhys Nathans would have never expected to have to kill her like this person did. And he would have run right after he did it." At this point Sherlock turned back and strode towards Lestrade.

"Detective, it's not Rhys Nathans."

Sherlock stood back like he expected Lestrade to be impressed, but Lestrade just stood there and shook his head slightly.

"And what's you're proof?" he asked.

Sherlock looked exasperated.

"Because! The killer _wanted_ to kill her, that's obvious!"

"And?" Lestrade was starting to raise his voice and John only had the option to watch the two men's arguments bounce back and forth like a tennis match.

"Someone who was not expecting to have to kill someone, like Nathans, would not have spent the time cleaning off traces of blood, would not have planted his mark and certainly would not have spent any time leafing through Isla's pamphlet." Sherlock cried, looking pleased with himself for the deduction.

Lestrade said nothing and Sherlock's look fell again.

"John," he asked almost petulantly, "why isn't he saying anything?"

"Because he's not convinced." John said simply, folding his arms.

"You're not?" Sherlock demanded, "What more do I need to say? The killer can't be Nathans, but clearly is someone else who knew a lot about the exhibit and knew enough about Isla to kill her!"

"I'm sorry Sherlock, but without a suspect, a motive or even fingerprints I've got to treat this case like Rhys Nathans is the murderer. Come to me with more concrete evidence and then we can talk about other suspects."

He pulled out his phone, most likely to call Sergeant Donovan and inform her what happened. He said a quick thank you to both men and left.

Sherlock left the crime scene fuming. And John knew well, even after only a few weeks of knowing him, that when Sherlock fumed, he also whined, complained and ranted for several city blocks. It wasn't until halfway through the cab ride home that Sherlock stopped for air.

"He called me down and I told him what I saw, but apparently that's not good enough, is it? No! Well, fine. I'll just have to pickpocket him next time I see him. Absolute waste of time, but now I have to solve it, don't I? Can't leave it to those brainless sods…John?"

John had been brought out of his thoughts for the first time in multiple blocks.

"What? Oh yeah, the case. I agree."

"John, are you mad at me?" Sherlock asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"No, no. I'm not mad at you. Not at all." John lied.

"Yes you are! You barely said a word to me since this morning."

John took a long pause before speaking.

"Alright fine. I am mad. And you want to know why? I'm just a little offended that you'd rather spend time with a cadaver than with me."

The cab stopped abruptly in front of 221B and John stormed out quickly, heading for the stairs.

"What? John! It's nothing like that! Where the hell are you…come back here!"

John just merely waved his hand irately and stormed up the stairs.

Sherlock sighed. One down side of the doctor's leg feeling better was that it wasn't as easy to catch him when he was angry now that he had momentum back. He heard the door slam already from the flat and figured in a few moments Mrs. Hudson would be inquiring what he had done to get John this riled up. Just once Sherlock wished he could have a non-emotional dealing with people, especially John. It would make life so much simpler. Waiting for the wrath at the top of the stairs, Sherlock stuck his hands into his pockets and hurried inside.

**_I just want to say thank you to all the wonderful, fantastic people who gave alerted, added me to their favorite or who have reviewed the story! You all are awesome!_**


	3. Chapter 3: Prediction

Chapter 3 - Prediction

John had no idea why he was so pissed off. It was unnatural for him to be this mad, even at Sherlock, who had an uncanny knack for making even the most calm and composed people go violent. But as soon as John got out of his cab, he angrily stomped up the stairs into the flat, sat down in the armchair and grabbed his newspaper, which Mrs. Hudson had folded and set on the table for him.

John was still sitting behind his paper sulking when he heard Sherlock hurry up the stairs a few minutes later. John smiled at the discomfort Mrs. Hudson had caused for the detective as he'd tried to dodge her questions, the two talking in loud enough tones for John to hear all the way upstairs. Even now, John still refused to look at Sherlock, who was standing awkwardly, groping for the words he wanted to use to approach the doctor.

"_Why on earth am I so mad at him?_"John wondered to himself, "_I wasn't even this mad last week when he'd blown up all the teacups as an experiment with radio waves_."

Finally, Sherlock had found words.

"John, I'm sorry I did something to upset you. I really didn't mean it that way."

The words felt sincere and John smiled as he pictured Sherlock frowning at the new concept of apology.

"John? John, say something."

John enjoyed making Sherlock flounder for a little. It caused him some of the greatest pleasure to make Sherlock ask repeatedly for forgiveness. Sherlock proposed the idea that they go out somewhere and practically begged for John to come. Sherlock was _not_ the type to beg, but this time he was actually pleading with John to just come out with him to the little Chinese restaurant they often went to when solving crimes.

"I don't know…" John said, letting Sherlock hang in limbo.

"_Please_. Come on." Sherlock asked almost desperately.

John had been convinced almost five minutes ago that staying mad would do no good, but it was entertaining to watch Sherlock grovel.

"Alright, fine. Let's go." John said, tossing the paper aside.

Sherlock brightened, but did a good job hiding it as he gathered his coat.

"Excellent! Can you just do me one favour, John?"

"What's that?"

"Never mention that to anyone."

"What? You begging? Never!" John replied as the two walked out of the flat and down the stairs side by side.

"It's going on your blog as soon as we get home, isn't it?"

John nodded, laughing as Sherlock shook his head.

"I hate you." Sherlock said in a voice approaching playfulness.

"Yeah, sure!" John replied.

If Sherlock did hate him, life would be so much simpler.

It was evening by the time John and Sherlock made it to the restaurant and began discussing their case.

"So, you don't think it was Nathans?" John asked, frowning in deep thought.

"No, I don't." Sherlock said, twirling his fork thoughtfully. He was too good to be bothered with chopsticks, "Do you?"

"I don't know." John said in a measured tone, trying to test the waters, "You're points where brilliant of course and we both saw the evidence, but without any other suspects, it's hard to say otherwise."

The waitress brought them their check silently and John nodded his thanks.

"Well, what do you say to taking a trip to the gallery tomorrow and talking to the curator and the exhibit manager?" Sherlock asked, smiling devilishly.

"That'd be brilliant," John replied and added the next bit with an air of sadness, "but I've got a therapy appointment tomorrow afternoon."

Sherlock sighed and his eyes filled with a look of sadness…wait, sadness? Sherlock had never looked sad about John having a therapy appointment before.

In fact, Sherlock had never looked sad about much anything. John tried to hid his surprise.

"Fine then, we'll go in the morning." Sherlock came to the consensus.

"That's a plan." John said. He had resist the urge to say "that's a date" and pressed his lips to the teacup in front of him to hid the smile that flickered across them at the thought.

Sherlock reached over to the check and took one of the fortune cookies from the top, tossing the other one to John.

"I bet you I can predict the fortune." Sherlock said, grinning lightly.

"You're on." John said, smiling back.

Sherlock watched closely as John cracked open the fortune cookie and read the small sheet of paper.

"_The answers you seek are right in front of you. _:)"

Folding the paper in his hands, he looked back at Sherlock.

"Right. Give it a go."

Sherlock stared for a few seconds, before coming to the idea.

"You smiled when you read it and looked up. It clearly made you think of me."

John rolled his eyes at the smug look on Sherlock's face, even though it was kind of true.

"Sure." John said sarcastically, "Continue."

"Hm…something about the way you looked when you read it says that it's something about answers being nearby."

"How do you do that?" John demanded, throwing the tiny piece of paper down.

"I bet there's a smiley face on it, too." he added.

"Damn you!" John said shocked, the two men laughing.

"So am I right? Let me see." Sherlock said, waving his hand like a child.

"Exactly right." John said begrudgingly handing the paper forward.

"Yes! Even down to the smiley face!"

John shook his head as Sherlock gave a smug grin.

"So, what do you think? Are the answers in front of you?"

"Let's hope so, especially in our case."

"Maybe it was talking about me." Sherlock said, biting his lip mischievously.

"Right! I think it was in fact talking about this cookie in front of me." John said, breaking the thing into bits, but not taking his eyes off of Sherlock, "What does yours say?"

Sherlock handed the piece of paper to John

"'Your accomplishments are pale compared to the people you know.'" Sherlock recited as John read the fortune silently. "It's wrong anyway."

"Why?" John asked looking up.

Sherlock didn't take his eyes off John as he said,

"It said 'people' as a plural when it should be singular."

Sherlock smiled brightly while all John could do was blush.

"Go 'head. Jump on your blog. Regale everyone with the story of how you made Sherlock Holmes beg for your company like a desperate old widow. No offense, Mrs. Hudson! Alright, John. Go 'head."

Sherlock was standing at the top of the stairs, issuing John the challenge half-resentfully, half with mock despair. The playfulness was uncharacteristic for Sherlock and John couldn't help but smile at it's novelty. John took off his coat and threw it on the couch.

"Nah. I think I'm okay." John smiled, "But the next time you blow up my teacups, I'm not only going to post it on the blog, but I'm also going to add tears."

Sherlock gasped, "You wouldn't!"

"Yes I would. I'd lie and said you wept like a little girl."

"And they say _I'm_ the psychopath!" Sherlock cried indignantly, throwing his coat at John and retreating into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

John shook his head as he pulled the long, black trench coat of himself and threw it next to his own.

"Child." he muttered and sat down at the computer to blog about the case (if for no other reason than to make his therapist think that's what his mind was on).

"John, John! Wake up, John! I've got fantastic news!"

It took John's mind a few seconds to adjust to being woken up, his eyes still clogged with grogginess. The scent of what John had always assumed was Sherlock's cologne was so strong in his nose that he thought at first he had fallen asleep on the couch with his head on Sherlock's coat, which would have been strange in of itself.

Once his eyes adjusted, John realized he was in his own bed, but what was really going on was even stranger. Sherlock was standing in front of him, shaking his bare shoulders to wake him up. It had to be three o'clock in the morning, but Sherlock, who was standing there in his bathrobe, still had a smug, excited smile.

"_How is it possible that his hair is still that curly at this hour?_" John thought, before realizing Sherlock was still waiting for his inquiry about the "fantastic news".

"What is it?" John asked, groaning with tiredness and attempting to bury his face back into his pillow, "You've decided to kick me out and find another flatmate?"

"No, that'd be horrible news. It's much better. Come on, John. Sit up!"

John's skin prickled as Sherlock's hand went to his back, still shaking him gently in an attempt to get his attention.

"I'm up, I'm up!" John said, hastily pulling himself into a sitting position and trying to sound annoyed, "Tell me the news."

"Right. So, Lestrade told me he needed concrete evidence in this case in order for him to stop treating it like Rhys Nathans is the murderer. So tomorrow we're going to get some more information."

"Yeah, so far I follow." John muttered, "At a more decent hour of the morning, we've going to go talk to the museum curator, right?"

"Not who I'm talking about, John. Think about it. I need clues to prove Nathans is innocent. Where am I going to go for them?"

It took John's half-sleeping brain a moment or two to process, but then the realization hit him.

"Oh no," he said shaking his head, eyes wide, "no, no, no, no, no. We are _not_ going to visit a possible murderer in jail."

"Yes we are, John. And he's not the murderer. That's how confident I am."

"Sherlock!" John said, annoyed and wary. He wasn't about to go charging into a prison to see a noted art thief, but there was no swaying Sherlock. He was already walking towards the door.

"We leave at eight o'clock, be ready by then. Good night, John, or should I say good morning. See you in a few hours."

"Sherlock! Get back in here. Are you mad?"

"Yes!" Sherlock called from the hallway at the same time John answered his own question out loud.

A few seconds later, there was the sound of Sherlock's bedroom door closing. That would be that for discussing the matter.

John sighed and fell back on his pillow hard.

"This better be damn worth it." he muttered, closing his eyes.

In five hours he'd be meeting with a murder suspect.

At around eight thirty that morning, John and Sherlock's cab pulled up in front of a tall grey building outlined against the grey London sky. The building had a gravel road leading to the chain link gate and fence, trees nestled next to it. The trees where bare and dead like the building, not pretty like the way hospitals and mental institutions tried to be.

John stepped out of the cab and paid the driver as Sherlock stepped out and surveyed the building. John too looked up as the cab pulled away, leaving them standing in front of the gates.

"Got a prediction on how this will go?" John asked, looking up at Sherlock.

"None at all. But that's the fun of it!" Sherlock said back excitedly and set off towards to gate to buzz them in.

"I think I liked it better when we operated on predictions." John sighed and he no choice but to follow.


	4. Chapter 4: Not Rhys Nathans

**_Hello! So, before school work evily eats up all my time again, I have gotten to posting ch. 4! Sadly, this section is a little more case centric than I was hoping, so there isn't as much JohnLock love, but I think I made up for that well in the the next few chapters. ;) Hopefully ch. 5 will be up before next week._**

**_Once again, I want to quick say thanks to all the people who give me such kind reviews. And a special thanks esp. to Takaouto who pointed out a missed Britishism. I usually do a pretty okay job w/ that, but sometimes my American-ness slips through, so let me know if it does again. Hope you all enjoy! You readers are what keeps me going w/ the stories! - AB_**

Chapter 4 - Not Rhys Nathans

The prison was tan on the inside and much warmer than outside by far. It would have almost been nice if it weren't for the fact that it was a bloody prison. As Sherlock and John stepped into the building, Sherlock flashed a pass to the security guard without a glance and kept walking, almost as though they had been expecting him there for a while.

"_The prat." _John thought as he watched the tail of Sherlock's long coat disappear around the corner, _"He didn't just come up with this on a whim. I bet he had this whole damn thing planned the second Lestrade brought him the case."_

Eventually, John caught up with Sherlock, almost slamming into his back as he stopped abruptly. The two were standing in the doorway of a large open room with six metal tables scattered throughout. At every table but the one in the far left, there was a prisoner on one side, usually flanked by a guard at one side and one or two visitors sitting across the table. None of the prisoners seemed exactly…well, intimidating. John looked around as he and Sherlock sat next to each other at the empty table.

"This is where they keep some of the less dangerous or lower-profile criminals" Sherlock turned to face John as though reading his thoughts, "They haven't upgraded Nathans's status yet as per my request."

As he spoke the last few words, there was the faint sound of a buzzer across the room. A stone faced guard was leading a blonde male prisoner out from behind a metal door that concealed the large visitation room from the rest of the prison.

"Is that Rhys Nathans?" John asked, nodding towards the prisoner.

"That's Rhys Nathans." Sherlock calmly replied.

From his seat, John craned his neck to try and get a better look. One thing was sure, Rhys Nathans _did not_ look like a murderer. However, he did look like an art thief. Despite the baggy, off-colour prison jump suit, Nathans was still wearing an expensive looking watch, an emerald ring on his thumb and looked like he would have done anything to climb into an Armani suit. His blonde hair was slicked back as though expertly styled and he smiled coyly when he saw John and Sherlock waiting. He looked like the type of cocky bloke you wanted to punch in the face, but he definitely didn't look like a murderer.

"Don't stare." Sherlock chastised as he did the same thing.

"Don't stare? I'm sitting in a prison looking at a potential murderer. I'll damn well stare at whatever the hell I want to!"

"Calm down, he's not a murderer."

"Says you." John muttered tersely.

The stone faced guard led Nathans over to the table where he took a seat across from John and Sherlock and folded his hands as though all three of them were out at a lovely social gathering.

"Mr. Nathans. My name is Sherlock Holmes and this is Doctor John Watson. We just want to ask you a few questions."

"Ah, yes." Nathans said smiling. His accent was icy and slightly Irish, "You're the blokes that called the prison earlier. Nice to meet you, gentlemen. I'd shake your hands, but well…I can't."

He flashed a winning smile and held up his hands which were bound by handcuffs.

"_That's okay. Not going to shake hands with potential murderers."_ John thought, unable to decide if he wanted to help this man or put him away longer.

"Mr. Nathans, I'm sure we don't have to explain the gravity of your situation to you." Sherlock continued on, leaning forward.

"Oh, no. DI Lestrade did that pretty well when he stopped by the other day." Nathans answered with a nod.

"So therefore I trust you will answer all of our questions with the utmost seriousness." Sherlock continued, glaring as though to solicit the younger man's attention.

"I'll be as serious as a heart attack." Nathans smirked, "Fire away."

Sherlock's lips quivered into the smallest sneer of contempt. Clearly he was having the same dichotomy of thought as John.

"Let's start out with the basics." Sherlock continued, "What did you know about the artist and her paintings?"

Nathans smiled, his pale blue eyes as icy as his voice.

"Isla," he said as though recalling an old friend, not speaking of a woman he was suspected of murdering, "was a real up-and-comer. Her paintings -beautiful stuff, I'm telling you- were slated to really rake in some cash. Her mediums and paint techniques, God, they were divine…"

He got a far-away look in his eyes for a moment before Sherlock brought him back to earth.

"How much cash are we talking about here, Nathans?"

Nathans jolted back into reality and smiled,

"Her less desirable paintings went anywhere from one hundred thousand pounds to three. Her most desirable one was estimated at being worth almost seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds."

"Nice bit of change to be made there." John commented, turning to Sherlock.

"Yes," he replied, "and plenty of incentive to commit murder."

Both John and Sherlock turned back to Nathans, who's look of indifference had been replaced with a look of panic as his gaze swiveled between the two of them.

"What? You aren't saying I killed her?" he asked, the hair on the back of his neck rising as Sherlock shrugged, "I thought you were here to disprove that."

"We're here to get answers, Mr. Nathans and right now it looks like you have the most motive."

"I'm telling you, I was here when it happened!"

"Then why didn't anyone see you?"

"I don't know! Maybe they weren't looking. But I swear to you, I didn't kill her."

Nathans looked desperate and a bit more cooperative now. John knew that Sherlock didn't think Nathans was the killer, but he had just wanted to make the art thief a little more defensive.

"Hang on," John said, replying Nathans previous statements in his head, "you said you'd seen the paintings, but the gallery just opened. How'd you see them?"

"Well, London hasn't been the only place that Isla opened her gallery. There was a preview of the gallery a few months ago in New York. I was there for the opening trying to lift a famous Monet from the same museum. Ironically, that's where the police almost caught me and so I came back to London."

"How many paintings were in the gallery?" John asked.

Nathans racked his brain for a second before coming to a conclusion.

"Six."

John and Sherlock suddenly turned to each other.

"Six, that's how many paintings Isla had in the safe." John muttered.

"And how many were taken from flat." Sherlock nodded.

"Mr. Nathans, are you absolutely sure about that number. Are you sure there were six paintings on display?" John asked, turning back to face Nathans.

"I'll admit, I wasn't paying exact attention to Miss Higgins and her paintings because of, you know, the Monet, but I know there were six. I have a programme back at my flat if you want to see it."

"That'd be excellent." Sherlock said, nodding.

"Sure," Nathans said, smiling. He was clearly a little less cheeky knowing these two men were trying to help him. "Got a mobile or something to enter the address into?"

Sherlock pulled out his phone and scanned through to the address section. Nathans gave him the building address and flat number and told them that they could find the programme sitting on his bedside table.

"Ask one of the guards to get the keys out of my stuff before you go. Just remember to bring them back."

"Thank you, Nathans. This has gone a long way in us helping you."

"Good luck, gentlemen. I'd really like the police to stop visiting me more than they really have to."

With that, Rhys Nathans got up from the seat and the stone-faced guard led him back out to the prison.

A few minutes later, John and Sherlock were back outside, walking towards the main road as Sherlock dangled Nathans' keys from his hand.

"So, what exactly did we accomplish with that whole thing?" John asked as the two men turned down the road.

"Simple. We got some basic information about Isla's paintings. I'm almost certain that the ones taken from the safe were the same ones Isla had on display in New York."

"Maybe they'll also be some of the same ones that were slated to go in the London display." John suggested as Sherlock flagged down a taxi.

"Exactly," he said getting in and giving the driver the address of the museum, "That's what we're going to check now and then after your appointment, we'll head to Nathans' flat."

John sighed. He'd almost forgotten about his appointment himself.

"So," he continued, pushing the impending session out of his mind, "did we find anything else out about Nathans? I mean, as a suspect."

"Yes," Sherlock said, pulling out his phone to text someone, "It's not Rhys Nathans."


	5. Chapter 5: Momentary Sun

**_Okay, this time I promise there is a bit more JohnLock than in pervious chapters! Yes, these next few chapters get really...interesting. Let's just put it that way. Teeheehee. ;) Love you all and hope you enjoy! - AB_**

Chapter 5 - Momentary Sun

Reviewing what they knew made the situation seem hopelessly annoying. The only suspect they had was behind bars and they had no other clues or leads. Their only hope seemed to be in identifying which paintings were suppose to be in the gallery and which had been taken from the safe. In addition to chasing ghosts, John's time was stacked up against a therapy session that was too last minute to give a cancellation notice for. Sherlock, however, didn't seem worried by any of these facts.

He hopped out of the cab as soon as it pulled up in front of the museum, leaving John to pay as usual. When John had finally caught up with Sherlock, he was half way up the stairs, his face still buried in his phone.

"What are you doing?" John demanded, taking the steps two at a time to keep up with the taller man's strides.

"Texting Lestrade to keep the crime scene opened. We need to get back there for Isla's programme."

"And he's going to do that for you?" John asked, holding the door open as the still texting Sherlock swung in.

"Probably not, but I figured I'd ask before I broke in."

He shot a smile in John's direction before clicking his phone shut noisily.

The museum's inside was gorgeous, branching off into the various exhibits. The main lobby was taken up by a large visitor's desk and the walls around the circular space were cover in Greek and Roman artifacts, the museum's current main exhibit. Behind the desk, a woman a little bit older than John and Sherlock stood arranging paperwork, her long brown hair hiding her face. At the sounds of the two men's shoes clacking across the marble floor, she looked up and smiled.

"Hello, gentlemen. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Yes, hello. My name is Sherlock Holmes and this is my colleague John Watson. We're working with Scotland Yard on the Isla Higgins case and we were hoping to talk with someone about the exhibit."

At the mention of Isla's name, the woman's green eyes became cloudy.

"Ah, yes. We were wondering if someone was going to stop by. My name is Karen Abel. I was the head of Isla's exhibit. We haven't decided if we should take the exhibit out yet, so we still have the artwork up. I'll take you to it."

Miss Abel lead John and Sherlock past the desk and up to the second floor of the museum. She turned down a hallway before arriving in a golden-yellow coloured room with several paintings lining the walls. As John entered the room, he read the plaque on the wall marking the exhibit's name, artist and art type.

"_Momentary Sun_?" he read aloud.

"Yeah," Miss Abel gave a weak smile, "it was Isla's main painting, the one that was slated to be the most popular. She named her exhibit after it."

As the exhibit head turned and walked through the room, Sherlock shot John a look behind her back.

"_Most popular_." he mouthed to John silently.

John nodded, recalling Nathans' mention of a "most desirable painting".

"_Seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds._" he mouthed back.

The two men's eyes lit up as they shared a common thought and this time they didn't even have to mouth the word that was creeping onto their lips: _"Motive"_

Sherlock strolled nonchalantly around the other side of the exhibit, motioning with his head for John to keep the woman busy while he snooped. John found this as good a time as any to pry, so he attempted to come off as polite as possible.

"Miss Abel…" he began gently, turning to the woman as she gazed at one of the paintings.

"Please, call me Karen." she smiled back, wiping away a tear as she glanced over the still partially bare exhibit. John pulled out a tissue with a comforting smile.

"Karen," he continued, "Can you tell me a little bit about Isla, you know, as an artist?"

"I hadn't known Isla very long and her work was still fairly new, but her paintings were so fresh and beautiful that we wanted to strike a contract up with her immediately. Our curator couldn't wait to get a glimpse of her work. He and I were there at Isla's New York expo."

Alarm bells went off in John's head. He opened his mouth to question further, but from the other side of the gallery, a voice interrupted him.

"John," called Sherlock's voice, "Come back here for a moment."

Turning back to Karen, John gave a little nod of apology,

"I'm so sorry, I'll be back. Don't go anywhere."

She smiled another sad smile before turning back to the paintings.

"I'll be here." she said.

John jogged over to what he expected to be the other side of the exhibit, but found himself in a bare white room with a half moon shaped wall and a large window overlooking the bustling traffic below. Multiple paintings wrapped in plastic were sitting in a rack against one of the walls.

"John," Sherlock asked, acknowledging his arrival with a nod, "about how many paintings are normally in an exhibit?"

John furrowed his brow,

"Dunno…" he murmured, trying to remember the last exhibit he went to, "It usually depends on the artist. Last one I say had about twenty. Why do you ask?"

Sherlock hadn't taken his eyes off of the rack and John could tell he was counting and re-counting the number of paintings on the rack.

"Because there were six paintings taken from Isla's safe and there are six paintings on the wall outside. In a perfect world we should count eight paintings on the rack, but I only count seven."

John looked at the rack and saw that some shelves were in fact empty, pieces of cardboard stuffed against the slots as placeholders. Only seven of the rungs contained a delicately wrapped painting.

"How do you mean?" John asked, "Are you thinking someone stole it?"

"Most likely the same person who took the paintings out of Isla's safe and killed her. Had to be someone close…how did the exhibit head check out?"

John shrugged,

"I don't think you can fake sorrow like that. I bet she doesn't even know the paintings in the safe are gone. Do you really think someone stole one of the paintings right out of the museum?"

Sherlock cocked his head slightly, turning towards John,

"Only one way to find out, now isn't there?"

Sherlock hurried out of the small room back to the exhibit as John leaned in to count the paintings once more. Seven. Damn.

Figuring Sherlock would somehow upset the poor woman in the opposite room if left to his own devices for too long, John hurried back into the exhibit himself. He arrived back just in time to catch up with Sherlock, who surprisingly seemed to be attempting being kind.

"Miss Abel, do you happen to have a programme or a brochure of some sort from the exhibit that we could have?"

"Yes," Karen Abel nodded her head, "I happen to have one downstairs. Let me go and get it for you two."

"Thanks so much." Sherlock plastered a smile on, although the effort seemed painful, before turning to walk through the exhibit once more.

"Thanks," John echoed, "Do you mind if we…?" he hooked his finger over his shoulder to reference the exhibit.

"No, not at all. Take your time. It's good to have someone interested in the exhibit, I suppose." she said, before hurrying off to find them a programme.

John turned and walked around the exhibit, finding Sherlock looking at a particularly beautiful painting in the center of the wall. The thing was painted with vivid oil paints on a canvas, framed in an ornate golden frame. The image was that of a small sun rising over a vast ocean, one side of the sky being dark and starry and the other side still in transit, emblazoned with the reds, golds and oranges often best associated with sunsets. In the painting's sky, a bluish crescent moon hung at the side of the sun as though hugging it, looking as though the two were puzzle pieces that were meant to fit perfectly. John looked at the plaque next to the painting and the title confirmed his suspicions: _"Momentary Sun"_.

John chanced a glance in Sherlock's direction and regarded with an air of satisfaction that Sherlock seemed thoroughly engrossed in the wonder of the painting just as any _normal_ human would be. It seemed he finally got the meaning of art.

"John," Sherlock finally broke the silence, his voice strangely and slightly hoarse, "You were right."

John's eyes widened. Sherlock admitting John was right two days in a row? He suddenly had an overwhelming desire to reach out and touch Sherlock's forehead to check if the consulting detective was healthy.

"How do you mean?" John asked for the second time during that day.

Sherlock finally looked away from the painting and gave him one of those intense, searching looks.

"I guess…I mean… I _suppose_, that art can actually be very beautiful. And it's enjoyable when you look at with the right people. With you."

Sherlock smiled and John had no idea why he suddenly went wobbly. Sherlock turned suddenly and walked over to the next painting, John following to view the art from Sherlock's side. The painting was called _"Crossroads"_. Sherlock scrutinized this one for a little while before turning back to John.

"Here," he said and reached his hand down.

A strange feeling shot up John's arm as Sherlock's hand came in contact with his own and his heart began to race. For a moment, he thought that Sherlock was holding his hand, and indeed for a moment he was, but when he released it all that was left in John's hand was Sherlock's sleek, black phone. He blinked at it for several seconds, his heart rate gradually slowing.

"Go around and take pictures of the plaques so we know which paintings are here and which aren't." Sherlock said as though nothing out of the ordinary would be seen with that gesture.

John was grateful for an excuse to hid to colour in his cheeks. He had no idea why the event had caused his emotions to go so wonky, but his fingers shook so violently that he could barely turn the phone on.

It only took John a few minutes to go around and get a photo of each of the painting's plaques. Sherlock had already taken care of the first two, so it was a simple matter of getting the four others into the phone. John had just finished and was walking back over to join Sherlock when Karen reappeared with their programme.

"Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson," she said, holding out the programme for John to take, "I'm so sorry it took me so long. I met up with the museum's curator on the stairs and we were talking for a bit."

"Oh, it's alright. Thank you." John said, taking the programme with a nod.

He began to flip through it and felt Sherlock walk up behind him, peering over John's shoulder. A voice from the stairs made both me look up suddenly, but Karen didn't seem effected by the sudden change in noise level.

"Karen, are you back in here again?" the voice belonged to a man.

In a few seconds, John was able to put a face to the voice as a man in his late forties with thinning brown hair and a black suit came jogging up the stairs and into the exhibit.

"Ah, Mr. Haywood!" Karen said brightly, ushering the man over, "These are the two gentlemen I was telling you about earlier. They're here to investigate Isla's murder. Mr. Holmes, Dr. Watson, this is Mr. Oliver Haywood. He's the curator for the museum."

Sherlock walked up and extended his hand, already analyzing the man a mile a minute.

"Pleasure, Mr. Haywood. My name is Sherlock Holmes and this is my friend Doctor John Watson."

John nodded politely and extended his hand with a "hello".

"Yes, gentlemen, hello." Haywood said, shaking both of their hands in turn, "I heard that two men were here to scope the place out. In the few months before her exhibit we had all really gotten to know Isla well. We all want to see the killer brought to justice. Any suspects?"

Sherlock cocked his head as he answered, still searching the smaller man's eyes.

"Just one so far. An art thief. His name is Rhys Nathans, I'm sure being a man of the arts you've probably heard of him."

Haywood's eyes suddenly became dark and the name and he gritted his teeth,

"Yeah, I know him, the bastard. He vandalized my old museum every chance he could get. Glad he's behind bars."

"Did he really kill Isla?" Karen suddenly demanded, directing the question in the general direction of anyone who would listen.

"That's what we are trying to find out." John answered before Sherlock had a chance to reply.

"Well listen, gents," Mr. Haywood continued, "please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you. I'd do anything to make sure that swine be found guilty."

"Actually, there is one thing." Sherlock said, catching Haywood by slight surprise, "I noticed there seems to be a stack of paintings in that room back there. Do those have anything to do with the exhibit?"

Haywood followed Sherlock's eyes to the room were the rack with the plastic wrapped paintings was just visible through the slightly open door. He shook his head quickly after a moment's hesitation.

"Those? No, they were part of the old exhibit. When we cleared the space, we just put some of the paintings back there."

"Oh, okay." Sherlock said nodding.

John knew Sherlock wasn't one to give up that easily, so he figured the consulting detective clearly had something else up his sleeve.

"Well, thank you for your time. We'll certainly contact you if something turns up." Sherlock said, turning and leaving the exhibit. John said his own goodbye to Karen and Mr. Haywood then exited himself, clutching the programme and Sherlock's phone.

With his phone returned to its rightful place in his pocket, Sherlock walked along next to John for a few moments in silence. John looked up once or twice, but Sherlock said nothing.

"Well?" John finally probed.

"He's lying." Sherlock spoke up as the two men put enough distance between them and the museum to speak, "I'm not sure why he's lying, but he's lying. Those paintings back there aren't from the previous exhibit, they're Isla's. See here."

He pulled out his phone and flipped through his photos before landing on one. Holding it up so John could see, he indicated the center of the photo with a gloved finger.

"This is the back of one of the paintings in the rack. I took a picture of each of them before I called you in and Isla had signed the back of each and every one of them. They're hers. I saw the shipping receipt on one of the paintings. They came in the night before she was murdered."

"So why would he lie about them being hers?" John asked, flipping through the photos as Sherlock held the phone. Each one of them was signed by Isla and bore the painting's name on the back.

Sherlock shrugged at John's words,

"Maybe he knew about the missing one."

"We've got to figure out which one that is. So, what do we do now?"

"Well first, we get you to your appointment."

John groaned. He could think of a thousand things he would rather do than go to his appointment.

"Stop that. Just go and get it over with." Sherlock said as he flagged down another taxi.

"Please, Mom. I don't want to go." John mocked Sherlock's motherly tone, Sherlock replying by pushing John in the cab.

"Oh, come off it!" Sherlock said, scooting in himself and giving the driver the address of John's therapist, Ella. "You won't be missing much anyway. I'm going to the lab to pick up some saliva samples I've been coagulating. But you're more than welcome to come along."

"And help you poke at solidified spit?" John scoffed, rolling his eyes, "You may have found something that makes me _want_ to go to therapy."

Sherlock shot a glance John's way and smiled.

"I may still have more fun than you."

John shrugged, "You're probably right."

The two men laughed before John broke off and snapped back to Earth.

"No seriously, though. What are we doing _after_ my appointment?"

Sherlock's phone chimed as if to answer and Sherlock glanced at the text that popped up before stuffing the device back into his coat.

"That was Lestrade. He said he'd keep the crime scene open for me for half an hour this afternoon. So, in answer to your question, we're going to the crime scene to get Isla's programme and then we're going to Nathans' flat to get the names of the paintings from the New York exhibit."

"Fair enough." John nodded as the cab began to turn onto the street he needed, "Do you want me to bring any takeaway back on my way home?"

Sherlock thought for a moment before shaking his head,

"No, thank you. I probably won't eat much. I usually don't when I get involved with cases like this."

"Alright. Well then, I look forward to getting this over with and then you and I get to go housebreaking." John said with a smile.

"No, it's only housebreaking if we break in. And the prisoner did give us his keys and invite us in."

John laughed one of his high, witty laughs as the cab pulled up to his therapist's building. He shook his head slightly as he thanked the cabbie and began to step out.

"John." Sherlock suddenly interrupted and his friend turned around to face him, "I have something I need to tell you."

"Yeah?" John asked, blinking and smiling slightly as if to encourage Sherlock's words.

Sherlock however, seemed to falter.

"Never mind. I'll tell you later." he said quickly.

Outside, John blinked, slightly confused. However, his eyes lit with a smile once more.

"Right then. Tell me later. Wish me luck, mate."

"Luck." Sherlock said, leaning back and rubbing his temples as John closed the door.

Sherlock huffed slightly as he watched John get out. Why did emotions have to make life so hard? He felt a small flash of anger to these new and evil things that were plaguing him. He wondered why John Watson of all people seemed to make him feel something…something strange that he thought he could identify but chose to ignore.

"Where to?" the cabbie asked, jarring him out of his thoughts.

"Baker Street. 221 B." he answered automatically. He planned on getting his microscope and at least three more nicotine patches before heading over to the lab.

He continued to stare out the window as the cab pulled away and John walked up the building's stairs outside. Before he opened the door, he turned around once more and waved at Sherlock through the window. Sherlock couldn't help raising his hand to return the gesture. John smiled before hurrying inside, the cab pulling back out.

Damn emotions. They made everything so difficult. Mycroft had warned him about the stupid things, but Sherlock had simply dismissed them as a disease that would never afflict him. He was wrong though; it seemed he was finally under the weather. As he looked back inside the cab, he suddenly had quite a headache. Once again, Sherlock flopped back with a sigh and rubbed his temples. He had a lot to tell John when he got home.

**_Ah, I know! I'm evil! Hopefully I can get the next chapter up soon. Like I said, some interesting stuff is round the bend! Much love - AB_**


	6. Chapter 6: The Main Attraction

_**Wow, that took a lot longer than I meant it to, sorry! Studying for finals really messed up my whole writing schedule, but I think I'm back on track now. Firstly, let me apologize if this chapter seems a little ADD. I tried to represent John and Sherlock a bit more equally than before, so it may end up being a bit hard to follow. Other than that, I hope you enjoy! Oh and I'm sorry for the ending to this chapter. It's...well, you'll see! - AB**_

Chapter 6 - The Main Attraction

Today had been too damn weird. The thought flickered across John's mind as he climbed up the stairs to his therapists office. Therapy would be the low point in…could he describe the day as fun? Maybe. Could he describe it as interesting? That was for sure. John was rapidly learning that everyday was interesting around one Sherlock Holmes.

Since three in the morning, John had been jarred from his sleep, gone to a gaol to visit an art thief/bastard/murderer/possible non-murderer, walked around an art exhibit, almost got his hand held by Sherlock, and was soon after going to be examining two flats for art piece names. Therapy seemed even more pale in comparison.

"_We don't have to tell Ella about the hand holding thing." _John thought quickly. It seemed Sherlock somehow enjoyed pushing him into all these awkward situations.

As he got in front of Ella's door, John checked his watch. 11:59, soon to be 12 on the nose. He turned the doorknob and let himself in. Ella was already waiting.

"Hello, John." she said with a slight smile, "You're actually a bit early for once. Go ahead and sit down. We'll get started."

John forced and smile and sat. He just had one hour to get through. Then he could go right back to thinking about the case (and maybe other things…but John quickly shoved that thought to the back of his brain).

~#~

Once he had been equipped with his microscope and a grand total of four nicotine patches successfully adhered to his right arm, Sherlock had set off for the lab. Honestly, he didn't really care about the saliva samples at the moment. He would have much preferred to go to Nathans' flat awhile to collect the programme or even go back to Isla's flat, but he figured John would bitch if he were left out, so Sherlock pushed that thought right out of his head. Instead he just showed his pass to the security guard, who let him inside quickly, and hurried down to the building's cafeteria to get some coffee. He could've gotten tea, but tea made him think of John and John made him think of the case. Besides, black coffee helped him think.

~ # ~

"So John, how have you been doing lately?" Ella asked, uncapping her pen.

"Good. Very good." John said and for once he wasn't lying when he said so.

"Excellent. I see you're leg is much better."

"Yeah, would you believe it just stopped one day? I dunno how or why, but it just stopped. I think I just sort of forgot about it."

"_Your limp's really bad when you walk but you don't ask for a chair when you stand as if you've forgotten about it. That means it's at least partially psychosomatic."_ John recalled Sherlock's words from the first time they'd met and couldn't help but smile. He supposed Sherlock was right that the whole thing had been in his head. He knew it had been bugging Sherlock what triggered his limp in the first place, but as long as it was over, that made John happy. He hadn't felt like a cripple in all the time he'd known Sherlock.

"How about your nightmares?" Ella asked, sending John back to Earth on an express flight.

"Few and far between." John answered, "I'll still get one occasionally, but I usually don't even remember it the next day."

"Fantastic! John, you really are making fast progress. What's your secret?"

He wanted to say "My secret is named Sherlock", but caught himself before he did, smiling slightly. Instead he simply shrugged and began to tell Ella about Isla Higgins when she asked him if he had any new cases.

~ # ~

On his way up to the lab, Sherlock stopped briefly to talk to Mike and found Molly to send her on an errand to find him a twenty-two milligram bottle of hydrochloric acid. He didn't mind the interruptions, but he did mind the formalities. It was, after all, usually John who took care of that.

When he was finally settled into his lab, the clock in the corner read 12:15 and he knew he would have to keep himself amused for at least another forty-five minutes before John got home. He factored in another fifteen for the midday traffic and rounded the total up to an even hour. The thought of waiting that long made him bored. Pulling his Petri dish out of the incubator, Sherlock busied himself with making slides, his mind still wandering over to his case.

With one hand he focused and unfocused the microscope to make it appear as though he were working and with the other grabbed his phone out of his pocket. He began to flip through the photos he and John had taken, cursing as he remembered John still had the programme in his pocket. No matter, he'd just go through the photos and write them down for now. He pulled a sheet of paper close to him and wrote in an untidy scrawl at the top: _"Paintings in Museum - On Shelf"_

Scrolling to the first one, he wrote the names of the paintings one by one, _"Mandala", "Calm in the Storm", "Clouds of Rain"_…

"Sherlock?" Molly's voice suddenly jarred the detective out of his thoughts and he looked up at her accusingly. Molly, however, just smiled and held out a flask of clear liquid, "I got the hydrochloric acid you needed."

"Ah, yes. The acid. Thanks." Sherlock murmured, crossing the room to take the flask from Molly.

He intended to go back to work on his list, but Molly seemed to have other plans.

"Where's John?" she asked, looking around rubbing her palms together.

"Um…he's out at a medical conference for the day." Sherlock lied. He wasn't sure if anyone at the lab knew about John's therapy sessions, but he didn't think John would take too kindly to them finding out from Sherlock. He flashed Molly a slight and faked smile in hopes that would end the subject.

"Oh, that's a shame." she continued, smiling, "I like John. He's a real sweetheart."

At this, Sherlock's head snapped back up from his microscope and he glared hard at Molly.

"What do you mean he's a sweetheart? What's that suppose to mean?" he demanded a little quicker than he meant to. Surprisingly, Molly's smile didn't fade much.

"Oh, I didn't mean anything by it, don't worry. He's just…sweet. He's a nice guy and he's just…I don't know, he's cute."

Sherlock's brain reeled.

"Cute!" he snapped, his nose wrinkling into a strange amount of contempt towards Molly for saying that.

"No, no, no!" she quick corrected, "I don't mean 'cute' as in I'm attracted to him, I mean 'cute' as in he's a good friend and a nice man."

She smiled again and shifted her weight as she began to speak again,

"Don't worry, I'm not muscling in on your territory. You let me know if you need anything else, okay?"

She stepped out of the lab, leaving Sherlock and his microscope alone once more. He wasn't really sure what had just happened, but he suddenly had one of those strange headaches again. It took him several minutes to get back to compiling his list again as he leaned forward on his desk and rubbed his whole face in his hands. Today had been too damn weird.

~ # ~

"John?"

"Yeah?" John said, suddenly looking at Ella. He hadn't realized he had been so caught up in talking about the case. He began to apologize, but Ella didn't seem to mind. She simply repositioned herself in the chair and smiled.

"John, I'm glad you're doing better, I really am…"

There was a hint of doubt in her voice and John waited for her to contradict herself.

"…but it doesn't sound like you get out much."

John laughed slightly and rolled his eyes. There it was.

"Am I right?"

"Um, sure." John said, thinking. "I mean, Sherlock and I do end up spending most of our time solving cases and whatnot, so we don't really do anything…fun. Sometimes if I'm lucky, the case will take us somewhere interesting. But, I'm happy. It's not like I'm complaining about it." he added hastily.

"Oh no, no." Ella said, scribbling on her pad and giving John a small smile, "I didn't mean to imply you aren't. It's just that you seemed a little overworked."

"Not at all. I'm actually grateful for something to keep me busy." John smiled, "And having Sherlock as company, even though he can get to be damn annoying sometimes, is better than being alone and sulking."

Ella nodded and went back to her scribbling. John didn't know why, but he felt slightly angry at the implication that all the work was bad for him. He'd rather spend his whole life solving cases without a single holiday than feeling the way he did when he first returned home. With a painful lump in his throat he remembered the bitter words he said to Mike that day, _"I'm not the John Watson you know." _Slowly but surely he was becoming himself again…and he didn't want to go back to the way things had been before when he came home and all he had been was a cripple.

"You know," Ella continued and John realized that his eyes had become slightly misty as he had sat in thought. He wiped the moisture out quickly as his therapist engaged him in conversation again, "I'm really proud of you for working on your blog. Do you feel like it's helping you readjust any?"

To be honest, Sherlock had actually been more of a help to him than the blog had been. It hadn't been the blog that had cured his limp, or that had gained him a new best friend, or that had made him feel the things he felt now. That was Sherlock. But, in a way, the blog and Sherlock went hand in hand. Without Sherlock, he would never have gotten involved with the cases and without the cases, he would never have made his blog into the thing it was. The whole thing was actually kind of a cycle, so in a way, the blog did help him readjust as the cases did.

"Yeah, I think it has. Gives me something to do at the end of the evenings. Write up our cases, you know."

"I have a few other patients that are war veterans who have whole plans to help them readjust. Blogging is great way according to many of the patients and other doctors I've talked to. So is holiday apparently. When's the last time you took a holiday, John?"

"Before service."

"And were was that to?"

John though.

"Cardiff."

Ella laughed, "That's hardly a holiday, John! I mean for an extended period of time, somewhere you've always wanted to go."

"Sounds great in theory, but Sherlock's not really the type to be up on holiday. He prefers the staying home and…"

Ella suddenly cut him off.

"I meant by yourself, John. A holiday for you."

John felt his cheeks flush in an unexpected wave of anger towards Ella.

"Oh." he retorted tersely, strangely averted to the idea of going on holiday and leaving Sherlock behind.

Both men would be hopelessly bored without each other, he firmly decided and put the idea out of his head. Ella cocked her head and looked at John, but after a few seconds she just continued. And she got personal. Her next question completely floored John, not only because of it's unexpectedness but because of what his mind concocted at the words.

"John, are you attracted to anyone?"

Behind his eyes, John's mind went crazy. The words of his therapist set of a little fuse he'd been thinking of all day and the backs of his eyes were imprinted with an image of a tall figure, skinny and serious with soft, dark hair and intensely searching eyes…He panicked slightly, not at the image, but at how much it was filling him up and how long it was taking him to overcome.

"What?" was all he managed to say after several seconds, the image behind his eyes smiling in a mix of affection and mockery.

"Are you attracted to anyone?" Ella repeated gently.

John closed his eyes and shook his head, attempting to shake the figure's face.

"No, no." he said, his thoughts buzzing to the contrary.

"I see." Ella said, scribbling again. John peered over at her pad to see what she was taking down this time.

"_Why in the bloody hell is she writing 'trust issues' again?" _he thought with a flash of annoyance through gritted teeth.

Once Ella had finished writing the comment, she pulled out another piece of paper and hastily wrote a note.

"Maybe not a full on holiday, but I think a daytrip will really do you good." she was saying cheerily, oblivious that John was trying to combat a cold sweat, "Here, I've got a friend named Rosalie who works at a travel agency downtown. Just go there and tell her I sent you. She'll be able to find you something for an excellent price."

John thanked her wearily as she handed him the note and held his face in his hand for several seconds. He hated it when Ella got that personal with him and now he found his heart had run out the door as quickly as possible in the direction of 221B Baker Street. He glance up at the clock. Fifteen more minutes and then he'd be able to run out of there himself and catch up with his heart back in the comfy armchair where nothing could hurt them. He repositioned himself on the chair once more so he could easily watch the clock as Ella changed gears to ask him about his sister.

~ # ~

At exactly one o'clock, Sherlock flew out of the lab like he had been told someone committed a quadruple homicide down the street with a crowbar and a ladle. He wanted to make it back to the flat before John. He had no idea why, but he wanted to. He felt that getting there first would give him some time to organize his thoughts. Leaving the lab with his microscope and partially complied list, Sherlock had managed to hail a taxi, return home and get comfortably seated at his desk all before 1:10. He knew that John would be home from his therapy session, probably annoyed with his therapist for what ever reason. Sherlock wondered how he would ever endure the complaining when all he wanted to do was tell John this little secret that was nagging in his brain. He was a detective, for God's sake, and detectives were suppose to tell secrets. Albeit, they were usually _other_ people's secrets, but the whole job was kind of to tell secrets never-the-less. But, he'd try to be supportive for as long as he could take the waiting. Which, based on the hollow thumping in his chest, would not be long at all.

"God damn it!" he actually moaned aloud, slamming his hands down, "Emotions are painful! I don't see why anyone would _like_ to have them!"

Sherlock put his face against the desk and pouted in a way very akin to a puppy. A very bored, very jumpy puppy. He glanced at the clock, which claimed it was 1:11.

"Come on, John." he murmured, "Waiting for you to get here is very tedious…and very boring."

The clock, of course, gave him no answer. Sherlock instead looked down at his arm and inspected the four nicotine patches with a sigh. Slowly, he began to peel off one and then a second and then a third, leaving only one right in the center of the arm. What he had to talk about with John was important and while emotions hurt like hell, it wasn't fair to dull them down. He'd just make due.

~ # ~

Homeward bound, thank God. That had to win the award for worst therapy session in the whole world. John trudged up the steps to the flat and turned the door with a sigh. As he stepped in, he spied Sherlock sitting at the desk with his microscope, jotting down some notes. After a few seconds, he looked up.

"John!" he said in an excited tone, before catching himself and shifting his gaze back to the microscope, "Um…I-uh, how did your session go?"

John gave Sherlock a sideways glance. He was very rarely ever tongue-tied. He figured it meant nothing, so dropped it, but continued to eye Sherlock, who went back to shuffling papers on his desk.

"Um…fine." John lied, hanging his coat up. He didn't feel like going into _why_ the session was so awful, especially not with Sherlock, "It went fine."

"Liar."

The abrupt declaration surprised the hell out of John. He took a step forward and gave Sherlock another sideways glance, trying not to lose his temper.

"Sorry, what?" he attempted to ask as calmly as possible.

"I said 'liar'. Your therapy session did not go fine, I can hear it in your voice, therefore, liar."

"_What the hell is today? 'Pick on people named John Watson day' and I didn't get the memo or something?" _John thought. Between Ella and now Sherlock not leaving his privacy alone, John started to feel as though he were on display.

John opened his mouth as though to speak, but nothing came out. Sherlock took his moment of silence to jump back in.

"Oh." he said in his surprised, deducing voice, "Your therapist asked you an awkward question, didn't she?"

John couldn't believe this was happening to him. He sighed loudly and buried his face in his hands.

"What did Ella ask you, John?" Sherlock pressed.

"Oh Christ, Sherlock. Nothing. She didn't ask me-"

"My God, John. You are such a terrible liar. Why do you even bother trying to get around me, you know I'll figure it out."

"Sometimes people just need their secrets, Sherlock!" John snapped, his cheeks flushing scarlet.

"Don't get short with me, John. I'm trying to have a conversation with you. You all are pulling for me to be normal, isn't that what _normal _people do?"

"No, it's-" John threw up his hands, not bothering to continue, "You know, never mind."

"What?" Sherlock suddenly came back to Earth with a thud, staring at John.

"Never mind. Forget it. I don't even know why I'm having this conversation with you. Especially now."

John stormed over to the peg he had hung his coat on earlier, grabbed it down with an angry flourish and put it on. He turned and marched towards the door, Sherlock standing behind him, watching.

"Where are you going?" Sherlock asked, his voice still sharp, but with a slightly different edge to it.

"Out. To get some air." John replied briskly.

"Fine!" Sherlock snapped at John's tone and slammed the door as John exited.

It was only once he got outside that John realized he had grabbed his cane without even thinking about it. As he walked down Baker Street in the quick gait of a man full-frontally pissed off, he spun the cane in his right hand absent-mindedly. John didn't slow his pace down until he hit one of the steet's many back alleyways. Even then, he was still storming.

It was some time right there, in between stepping over a puddle and muttering angrily about Sherlock under his breath, that it happened. In mid-step, John felt his whole leg seize up and his feet gave out beneath him like a newborn filly. He fell with a thud against the pavement, the cane flying out of his grasp as his right hand sprawled out in front of him. The fall had shocked him and knocked the breath out of his lungs.

Any normal person would have cursed themselves for not watching where they were going and declared that they had tripped, but not John. John knew better.

"_Oh, please no."_ he pleaded silently, kneeling and pulling his leg up under him, wincing slightly with pain. He rock back and forth on it slightly, debating what to do now, _"Oh no, God. No, no, no, no, no."_

The leg that had gone wonky on him had been _that_ leg, the leg that had cause him all the trouble with his limping before. This heart thudded against his rib cage at the thought that the limp was back again, even after all this time. John reached forward to grab his cane ruefully, and, letting out a small cry at the effort, heaved himself up to a standing position once more.

John would have preferred to do a million other things besides go back home and face what had just happened head on, but he knew he couldn't just stand around in the alley waiting for the grass to grow. Wincing with the effort and with the cane as support, John limped slowly back to 221B Baker Street.

**_You know, I think Moffat and Gatiss have infected me with their terrible cliffhanger disease! Don't hate me too much for that one! Poor John...but it can only get better. *wink, wink ;)* Hopefully chapter 7 will be up by Saturday or sooner. See you all soon! - AB_**


	7. Chapter 7: X's and O's

**_Hello all! So, I decided to get this chapter up a little bit earlier because I am very excited and I didn't want to leave you all in suspense (see, I'm not too mean, haha!). I apologize in advance for any OOC-ness or fluff here, but I think it works. These next few chapters are gonna be a bit fluffy, like so fluffy you can pet them. :) Enjoy, guys! - AB_**

**_Oh, and P.S. - If anyone asks you who the most amazing readers in the whole world are, you can tell them YOU GUYS ARE! Thank you so much for being awesome! 3_**

**_P.P.S - A big thank you to bbmcowgirl for pointing out a very funny and equally embarassing typo I made in this story. It has prompty been corrected. Thanks a bundle for pointing it out! I am now uber embarassed (damn auto-correct! I read this chapter over twice! Grr...)_**

Chapter 7 - X's and O's

After a semi-painful five minute trek back up the street, John had finally managed to get up to the door of the flat and let himself in. He heaved himself up the stairs gingerly and waited at the inner door. He put his hand on the doorknob and sighed.

"_Don't freak out on Sherlock,"_ John reminded himself firmly, _"This isn't his fault. It's not his fault you're limping. Don't blame it on him."_

He figured Sherlock had just finally calmed down and he didn't want things to boil over again because he was in a foul state of temperament. He attempted to calm his pulsing nerves and steal himself to stop his breath from coming in ragged gasps. Slowly, he turned the knob and walked into the flat and attempted to be (or appear) as nonchalant as though nothing had happened.

"Hey," he said calmly, using all the calmness he could muster. He plastered a cold and unemotional smile onto his face, wincing with the effort.

Sherlock looked up from his desk.

"Oh, hi." Sherlock said, sounding slightly surprised, "You're back quickly."

"Yeah, well I, um-"

John should've known Sherlock would see through his ruse in a matter of seconds. Sherlock quickly cut John off, his eyes moving almost accusingly down to stare at his leg.

"What's wrong with your leg?" he inquired, "I see your limp is back."

His tone was so simple, so cool, as though he had just said "We're out of milk, John." or "Can I have that coffee black?" It made John's blood boil for some inexplicable reason. The only man who had ignored it before had brought it to light once more. And he spoke as though he were speaking of the weather, not a massive hang-up in John's life. His cheeks flushed scarlet and he lost his temper again.

"Shut up!" he demanded harshly and then immediately wished he could take the words back.

At his desk, Sherlock's eyes flared wide with a mixture of surprise and curiosity.

It was an emotion that didn't usually grace Sherlock's sharp, smug face and it came to John as an oddity. John's hand flew to his mouth and he looked to the floor in embarrassment.

"Sherlock, I'm sorry. It's just, I-I'm so, my God, um…" John stammered, trying to find the right words to say to his friend.

Across from him, Sherlock's eyes lightened a few emotions from surprise to good natured concern. He got up from his desk and strode over to stand in front of John, one hand trailing against the wood of his desktop.

"John," he murmured gently, taking John's wrist, "Calm down."

Sherlock's fingers entangled around John's hand, which he had balled up into a fist in his frustration. John sucked his breath in as he looked down at Sherlock's hand and then up at his eyes in disbelief. He tried to ignore the words of his therapist as they cycled wildly in his head, _"Are you attracted to anyone?"_ and his subsequent lie. _"What? No, no"_ he had said as Sherlock's coy smile and dark curls appeared behind his eyes to the contrary.

Sherlock's fingers were sending heat up John's fingertips like touching a stove and he tried to hide how stiff his body had become at the close proximity Sherlock had forced him into. He quickly shifted his eyes to the floor and sighed through his nose, pretending this wasn't at all something that was sending his heart into a forest fire. Of course, as Sherlock himself had said, why did John even try to hide anything from Sherlock Holmes?

Sherlock seemed to sense the tenseness in John's wrist despite how hard he tried to hide it. He looked John in the eyes, his gaze darting back and forth as though reading a book, analyzing John, every nuance, every tick. John held his breath for several tense moments, Sherlock's gaze (and his hand) not leaving John. After what felt like forever, he finally spoke.

"Interesting…" was all he said, after those several tense moments. He smiled as though he were looking at the beginnings of a case he couldn't crack right away.

John finally looked up again and met Sherlock's eyes with a confused looked, "What's interesting?" he asked.

Sherlock simply smiled, his lips parting slightly as he ran the information over again in his head.

"You like this" was his simple response.

John's heart fluttered crazily as a sharp knot formed in his throat. What could he say? Deny it, accept it? How could he even speak with Sherlock's body so close to his? He attempted to say something, but he was simply just petrified with fear and shock. Just the effort was painful. Luckily, Sherlock saved him the effort.

"Take my hands, John." Sherlock said lightly, holding out his hands.

John hesitated, looking at Sherlock in confusion. His fingers twitched involuntarily towards Sherlock's outstretched palms, but something made him unable to take them despite the desire.

Sherlock rolled his eyes at the delayed reaction. "Oh for God's sake, John, take my hand!" he demanded.

So, still in a combination of fear and attraction, John reached out and took his flat mate by the hands.

For hands that spent most times tinkering with microscopes, scalpels and crime scenes, Sherlock's hands where strangely soft as the skin of the two men's palms pressed together. Once again, John's breath caught, but he had a feeling he wasn't the only one this time.

"What do you observe?" Sherlock asked slowly.

John felt a little angered. Was this a case to him that John was suppose to analyze? But John looked up to examine Sherlock's face and understood why he had given that instruction. Sherlock's eyes blinked twice as slow as normal and his bottom lip was becoming slightly marked as his teeth slid over it. Inside John's hand, Sherlock's fingers twitched attempting to latch themselves around John's own fingers.

John came to his conclusion, a little surprise as he looked up at those eyes that suddenly couldn't meet his.

"You like this too," he realized, slightly shocked and slightly happy.

The nervous Sherlock disappeared as the old one John knew resurfaced in that familiar, coy grin, "You're powers of deduction are improving, my dear Watson." he said, "Well, now we're getting somewhere."

And with that, Sherlock leaned in and kissed John full on the lips.

John had kissed before, but never like this. Kissing Sherlock made John think his definition of the word had always been completely wrong. Sherlock's lips tasted like peppermint and Earl Grey Tea against John's. When the two where this close, John could tell that Sherlock's hair smelled like shampoo and rain.

Sherlock's kisses were slightly hesitant, but romantic, a romance that was completely shocking for the "psychopath" John had come to know. But it was amazing. The touch of Sherlock's lips, the feel of his body pressed close against John's chest. There was nothing he didn't like about this kiss. He liked it all. He kissed Sherlock back eagerly, the feel of it absolutely divine.

Sherlock's lips were so softly smooth and his hands so warm as he opened and closed his lips against John's. John turned his head as Sherlock rubbed his nose against John's cheek like a cat. This was passion, pure passion. No one had ever loved John like this before and John had a feeling the same was true for Sherlock.

They finally broke off after a minute or so and Sherlock laced his long fingers around John's waist. He bent his head and planted a slow, tender kiss against John's neck, his hair brushing gently against skin. John sighed with pleasure and arched his neck up, his face towards the ceiling. He reached up to run his hands through Sherlock's hair, which resulted in a small moan from Sherlock.

With their hands still wrapped in their positions around each other's bodies, John and Sherlock slid down the wall next to the kitchen. John expected Sherlock to bail at the thought of emotional contact, but to his surprise, Sherlock stayed close by, nose to nose with John as the two men cuddled. John shut his eyes and pressed his forehead against Sherlock's. He could actually feel Sherlock smile at the gesture as both men tightened their grips around each other's torsos. He could have fallen asleep like that if a thought hadn't consumed him all of a sudden.

"Oh!" he declared, opening his eyes and pulling back to look at Sherlock, "I almost forgot. What did you want to tell me earlier?"

Sherlock cocked his head in thought and then gave a slight smile, looking back to John,

"You know, I think I've covered it."

John gave a slight nod,

"Right. Well, I think I may have missed some of it. Do you mind repeating it?"

Sherlock's grin broadened.

"Absolutely not."

He leaned in once more, John meeting him in the middle. Sherlock's kiss was a little more sure this time, his lips tugging at John's repeatedly. The passion began to rise in John's throat once more. Suddenly, there was the low, dull sound of Sherlock's phone ringing in his pocket. He let out an annoyed groan as he broke off from kissing John and reached into his pocket.

"Sorry." Sherlock muttered in annoyance, pulling out his phone.

"It's fine," John smiled, pulling his knees up to his chest, "take you time."

Sherlock pulled up what John could tell was a text message and read it carefully before closing the phone and shooting John an apologetic look.

"That was Lestrade. He said that we have half an hour at the crime scene before Anderson and Donovan show up. I'd prefer not to have a run in with them there."

"Right," John said, blushing slightly as Sherlock helped him to his feet, "I completely forgot, sorry."

"Don't worry," Sherlock said, his hand relocating to John's waist, "It wasn't exactly my top priority either."

John smiled at the tender moment before Sherlock went hurrying forward to grab his coat, throwing his scarf on with a quick jerk of his wrist.

"Come when you're ready. I'm heading out awhile." Sherlock said, pecking John on the cheek and dashing out the door.

"_Typical Sherlock." _John thought with a smile, still leaning against the wall. But this day had been anything but typical and John was glad for it. Sherlock made his life more interesting and that old John whom nothing ever happened to had vanished. He hypothesized that man was gone for good. Outside, he heard Sherlock hail a taxi, the door slamming as he headed out to Isla Higgins's flat. John sighed, his leg in pain but his heart lighter. He had a feeling it would take him more than a little while to move from his position.

**_Ah, I need these men together in my life. 3 Hope you liked it, even though it was mostly a prolonged kissing scene, lol! Chapter 8 is kinda going slow, but with luck it'll be up soon! - AB_**


	8. Chapter 8: An Officer and a Gentleman

**_Hello, my lovelies! I know exactly what you're thinking, "OMG! It's AB! Where has she been for all these weeks, I thought she fell off the face of the world or something!" Yeah, I know, and I apologize for how long it took to get the REAL and complete version of chapter 8. I would have updated yesterday, but as I'm sure many of you know, the login was down all day :'( _**

**_So, anyway, I want to thank everyone so much for the well-wishes and suggestions for my eyestrain (which is much better now) and for NOT killing me via computer for not updating. I am hoping to get back on track with weekly updating, if everything goes well. Well, without further blabing, here is the whole version of chapter 8! Sorry for any OOC-ness. Enjoy! :) - AB_**

Chapter 8 - An Officer and a Gentleman

Eventually, John ordered himself to get up. It was painful and annoying, but he got down the stairs, hailed a cab and met Sherlock at Isla's flat. When he got there, Sherlock was busy snapping on a pair of latex gloves, Lestrade following him around.

"…and don't touch anything!" Lestrade was demanding to the taller man's back, Sherlock obviously not listening. "You have half an hour!"

Lestrade gave John a slight little nod as he exited through the door and left Sherlock and John alone.

Sherlock seemed to realize for the first time that John had just gotten there and he strode across the room to kiss John on the lips, making sure Lestrade had really left. John didn't want to complain. It's not like he didn't like it (because he did, immensely he did), but they were standing in the flat of a dead woman and they were trying to gather evidence.

"Sh-Sherlock!" he said, pulling away slightly, "Aren't we suppose to be collecting the programme? Not that I don't, y'know, like it. I just mean…priorities and all."

Sherlock looked slightly annoyed that there was a case going on right next to him, but conceded to John's argument.

"Right, sorry." he murmured, "I just…don't kiss often. It's kind of new to me."

John felt sorry he'd said anything.

The crime scene looked almost identical to when they had been there the day before. The only difference was the absence of Isla's body, obviously taken down to the morgue with Molly. John took a pair of gloves from Sherlock and put them on, rounding on the still open safe. To spare John from having to bend down, Sherlock got on his knees and pulled Isla's programme out gently.

"Now, tell me again what we're doing here?" John asked as Sherlock got back to his feet and flipped the programme open. He began to snap pictures quickly of a few pages in which Isla had displayed images of her paintings.

"After our little trip to the museum," replied Sherlock, suddenly all business again, "I was able to compile a list of paintings in the exhibit and those on the shelf. The only two factors we don't know are which paintings were in the safe and which was stolen."

"So if we figure out which ones were in the safe, we figure out the missing one." John came to it with a nod.

"And if we discover which ones were in the safe, we may then see if those match up with the paintings in Isla's New York exhibit. I feel very strongly the ones that were taken from the safe were the ones in the exhibit."

"Fair enough," John replied, "how can I help?"

"Here" Sherlock said and handed his now completed list to John, "This is the list of paintings on display at the museum and on the shelf. On the back, begin a section for the ones in the safe."

John limped over to the table and pulled out a pen, bending low enough to write. He gave Sherlock a nod to begin once Sherlock had come to the right page.

"Here we are, she couldn't have made it any more convenient. She has a specific section labeled 'In Safe'. Sadly, her organization may have gotten her killed."

Sherlock cleared his throat and began to rattle off the painting names. John wrote them down quickly on the back of the paper and nodded when Sherlock was to continue. When all was said and done, the six paintings had been written down carefully with a note asking, "NYC exhibit?" in John's handwriting. Sherlock set the programme on the floor and stooped low over John's shoulder to look.

"You have five minutes!" Lestrade shouted from outside as the two men looked.

John made a motion to leave, but Sherlock caught his arm.

"Wait. Very quickly we have to go through all the paintings. She has a whole section dedicated to her _Momentary Sun _exhibit."

John cast a glance over his shoulder to see if Lestrade was coming back,

"Alright. I'll star the ones in the programme. But we've got to hurry."

Sherlock wasted no time reading off the paintings. If John had them on the list he'd simply reply, "got it" and give the painting a hurried little star. So far, the list was checking out and it seemed as though they wouldn't be finding the missing painting after all.

"_Intrepid_."

"Got it."

"_Yellow Woods_."

"Got it."

"This one is just a ridiculous name! _It's Entertainment_?"

"I got- hang on a minute. I don't have that one on here."

"What?" Sherlock demanded, springing to his feet, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, completely. Sherlock, it's not on here."

"Well, we've found our missing painting name. Write it down and circle it."

John quickly wrote down the painting title and folded the list up to dwell in his pocket. Carefully, Sherlock closed the programme and placed it back in the safe. Lestrade popped back in as the two men began to leave.

"Are you finished? Donovan and Anderson are coming up the front stairs."

"Well then, we shall just have to go down the back. And we're done, thank you. Don't tell them we were here." Sherlock replied, leaving the flat.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Lestrade replied sourly as Sherlock and John hurried down the back stairs.

A few moments later they were back on the London streets, John doing his best to keep up with Sherlock. He refused to let the other man slow down his strides to keep in line with him. They walked several blocks in awkward silence and John figured Sherlock was thinking.

"Here's a penny." John said, shattering the silence as though he had sliced through a veil, "Now what the hell are you thinking about?"

Sherlock smiled smugly, as though he enjoyed being the only one privy to some piece of knowledge.

"Just thinking of this case. Getting the list at Nathans's house will most likely confirm my suspicions that those New York exhibit paintings are the same ones taken from Isla's safe."

"What would that prove?"

"It would certainly narrow down the field of possible suspects. I think whoever killed Isla saw the paintings at the exhibit and knew they'd be in the safe."

"And knew that they would soon be going to the exhibit." John finished.

"Exactly. Since they had had a first hand look at the new paintings and their popularity, the murderer would certainly know their value and that spells motive."

Several times throughout this conversation, Sherlock had been trying to hail a taxi, but none stopped for him. It was midday and the streets were so crowded it was hard for the cabbies to make their stops or see who was flagging them down. Sherlock tried once more in vain to hail one, throwing his arm up authoritatively only to be passed over again. He swore lightly.

"Damn them, I'm starting to hate cabbies." Sherlock groaned.

"Really? Just now?" John said smiling, remembering their "Study in Pink" with a strange fondness, "Why don't you just hop a metro or a bus or something?" Sherlock's eyes widened with the light of a revelation, but at the same time he glanced at John guiltily.

"The nearest stop is right back there, if you hurry you can catch the next bus."

"But, John…what about your leg?"

"Go ahead, I'll be fine. I can catch up with you later. Go on, if you run you'll probably make it. _I understand. Go._" John added the last bit in a whisper. He did want to impede Sherlock's progress with his foolish ailment, but it flattered him to the core that Sherlock cared.

Sherlock smiled and bent down to kiss John on the cheek gently.

"Thank you, John." he said, thrusting a small piece of paper with Nathans's address into John's gloved hand, "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

John nodded quickly and gave a grin.

"Yes, yes. I'm positive. Now go, or you'll miss it!"

Sherlock touched his cheek lightly before turning and running off down the path the two men had been walking, his long coat swishing like a wave. John couldn't help but watch Sherlock for a few moments, before turning in the direction from which they had come. He remembered for a fact that there was another bus stop a few blocks up and with any luck, he could catch one that left only a few moments after Sherlock's bus.

"_Ah, Sherlock."_ he thought dreamily, _"What did I do so right to deserve you?"_

When John reached the stop a few moments later, the bus was just coming around the corner, creaking to life slowly after overcoming an eternally long stoplight. He peppered his imagination with a few colourful curse words as he craned his neck and caught the slight of the bus's crowded interior. A seat was looking nigh impossible. Hoping maybe Sherlock had more luck on his venture, John latched his fingers around the railing on the door and hauled himself into the stuffy tin can.

As his quick eyes surveyed the inside of the vehicle, John came across an impossibility that almost caused him to drop the bus fare he was holding in his pale hand. In one of the front seats staring out a window absent-mindedly was a tall man, his height clear even as he sat. One of his hands was gripping his knee with a type of hidden strength that John remembered vividly from not long ago in his flat. The other hand was snaking through the man's curls, his slender fingers curling and uncurling any flyaway strands they came across. It was so slim a possibility that it would have taken place and yet it did. John had managed to catch the very same bus he had sent Sherlock off to catch.

"Sh-" The word formed on John's lips and died almost as quickly.

Something in his mind pulled the reigns on calling out before he could. He wasn't sure if it was the fear of interrupting a thought process or some kind of sense of informality that stopped it, but John decided to cap his greeting until somehow he could get closer to Sherlock, to touch him and speak with him one on one.

However, as most of his plans usually were, the hope for a more intimate reintroduction was dashed on the metaphorical rocks like a wee sailboat with a tiny umbrella for a sail. As John dropped the fare into the slot near the bus's dashboard, the driver, like most usually did, allowed his eyes to drop to the cane. John grinded his teeth nervously as the driver gave him a brief nod. John forced a weak smile in return.

"Are you alright there, sir?" the driver asked kindly, his accent almost Cockney, "Do you need a seat?"

"No, no. I'm fine, thanks." John replied quickly, his eyes not meeting those of the driver as they searched quickly for an escape.

"You seem military, just by the way you hold yourself. Where did you serve?"

"Afghanistan. I was an army doctor." answered John uncomfortably.

"God bless you, sir. Thank you for your service. Please, take a seat. I'm sure someone here will get up for a former soldier."

"Sir, it's no trouble really. Please don't go through all th-"

"Excuse me. Is anyone willing to give up their seat for this gentleman?" the bus driver cut him off as he called back through the crowded bus.

At this point, Sherlock looked up from his stupor and his face fell. His eyes met John's and his thin face reflected John's embarrassment as if it were his own. As both men glanced at each other, each was aware of the quandary: Sherlock knew well how much John hated being offered a seat, but it seemed no one else was willing to vacate and it appeared equally likely the driver wouldn't stop trying until someone relented.

The rest of the people on the bus cast a few furtive glances to their neighbors and didn't move themselves. In their haste to seem inconspicuous, none of the other passengers noticed the two men staring at each other guiltily.

"Honestly, no one?" the driver asked hastily, "This man is a war hero from Afghanistan, surely someone must be willing to give up a seat for a soldier."

Backed into a corner in every possible way, colour crept into John's cheeks as he stared at Sherlock, placing his tongue angrily in his cheek. Sherlock sat staring back at the man in front of him and played over the course of action in his mind. Sherlock knew how hurt John would be if he willingly coddled him, but he saw no other way. Batting his breath, he rose carefully.

"Please, take my seat, sir." he said shakily as John closed his eyes in shame, "It-It's the least I could do for someone who risked his life for all of us."

"Ah, see! Now there's a gentleman!" the driver beamed, "Thank you, sir."

"Yes, thank you." John rasped.

"Of course." Sherlock's voice was weak and he turned around quickly, not looking into John's eyes. Hurrying to the back of the bus, Sherlock couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sweep of sadness for what he had just done. He forced himself to look down, unable to watch John steep in his own disappointment.

For about fifteen minutes, the ride went on in this silence. John didn't look back once and Sherlock didn't dare try to contact him in any way. He debated texting his apology to John, but worried it would only inflame the situation, he decided against it in the end. He hated every part about this, how hurt John looked and how worried that made him. With a lurch he wondered if he had lost someone whom he cared about so deeply, someone he may even lo-

Suddenly, the bus came to a stop that was a few blocks away from Nathans's flat, stopping his thought process. John took a brief moment of deliberation, but after the small pause, got up from his seat and hurried towards the door.

"Thank you." he said to the driver as he hurried off, who nodded and said his goodbye hastily.

Sherlock had no option but to hurry off through the bus's rear doors. He hopped off the vehicle like a raven and located John shortly after his feet hit the sidewalk. John was hobbling in the direction of Nathans's flat as quickly as his limp would allow him, his cane reverberating in a sound almost like agitation. Despite his attempt at speed, Sherlock was able to catch up with John in a few long strides.

"John!" he called out, his throat tight.

The doctor stopped, not turning to look at Sherlock. Just from the other man's breathing, Sherlock could deduce that what John was wiping away were hot, angry tears.

"John, please look at me." he beseeched and John turned around slowly.

"What?" he demanded coldly, eyes red. The tone was not so much in anger, but in an attempt to keep his voice steady as he sniffed.

"John, I am so sorry." Sherlock began, putting his hands to the side of John's face. He had no idea now to apologize for this, but he was sure as hell going to try. He continued slowly as he forced John to look into his eyes:

"There was nothing else I could really do. I never meant to embarrass you and I knew how much it would hurt you if I did, but…he would've kept asking and no one else would have…"

"I use to be somebody, Sherlock. Now I'm just a cripple." John interrupted softly with a fresh wave of tears.

Sherlock felt his heart tug involuntarily at the words.

"No, don't you dare say that." he demanded in a tone both reproachful and gentle. Sweetly and without thinking on it, he reached his thumb up and brushed the tears out of John's eyes, "That's not what you are. You're the truest friend I've ever had, John. You made me happy again."

John looked up at Sherlock in feeble surprise, his own hand lacing around Sherlock's before it could leave him.

"You-You weren't happy?"

"Do you think I enjoy being called a freak by everyone? Do you imagine it's fun for me to be undermined by the police force? It never started like that. It just grew. And I know…I try to tell myself it's not worth it, their opinions don't matter, but it's hard. I've always prided myself on being the world's only consulting detective, but being the world's only anything gets awfully lonely sometimes. You're what makes me whole again and that's why I consider you my best friend. The best thing that's ever happened to me, really. You fill that void."

As Sherlock looked down, John felt his heart race in his ribcage. He pulled Sherlock's hands away from his face and wrapped the lanky fingers within his own hand.

"Sherlock…I-I had no idea. About any of this."

Sherlock grimaced in response as though being this vulnerable was killing him.

"I don't readily volunteer it." he confessed awkwardly, "You're the first person I've ever told."

For a while, neither man knew what to say. They just stood on the sidewalk as people hurried by them obliviously, forehead to forehead with their hands pressed into a tight knot. Eventually, John laughed slightly and pulled away to look at Sherlock.

"…What a pair we are." he said slowly with a smile.

"What d'you mean?" Sherlock said in confusion, shifting his grip to around John's lower back carefully.

"The Cripple and the Freak. We sound like a goddamn Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale."

And just like that, the pain dissipated in both of them as they shared a laugh at themselves slightly. Careless to anyone watching them, Sherlock took John's cane from him and began to twirl it in his left hand like Mycroft would twirl an umbrella. He rested his right hand on the side of John's hip as John rested his own left hand across Sherlock's lower back. Taking it slow for John's limp and supporting him slightly, Sherlock and John walked down the sidewalk in the direction of the flat.

~ # ~

"What's that one called?"

"Um, I don't know."

"Well, consulting detective, you're the one with the list. Check."

"You're demanding."

"I'm a soldier."

"Doesn't give you license to be a prat."

John gave Sherlock what was attempting to be a dry glare in response, but ended up laughing as he gave the taller man's shoulders a slight shove.

"Oh, I'm the prat." he said, rolling his eyes, "I'm sure that's what everyone else would say, too."

Rhys Nathans's flat was less than a block up the street, but Sherlock wanted John to rest his leg. Despite the fact that John continuously protested his leg did not hurt, the look on his face whenever he moved it said to the contrary. Instead, Sherlock had pulled him over to a bench and insisted he sit down. The two of them now sat on the bench, Sherlock up against the edge while John rested his leg gracefully over Sherlock's lap.

Somehow, the two of them had started to look at the photos of Isla's paintings and couldn't seem to stop. Sherlock had just started flipping through the photographs he had taken on his mobile and John began looking over his shoulder, asking the names of ones he liked.

Sherlock pulled up the photos of Isla's programme pages and scanned one of the pictures with his quick eyes.

"It's called _Reflection of the Night Sky_" Sherlock said in a tone approaching boredom, but John knew better. He had a suspicion that was just a way to guard himself against change. He had an even stronger suspicion that Sherlock was starting to like art.

"That one may be my favourite of all of them." John said casually, his eyes reflecting the image on the screen of a blue-purple sky littered with stars.

"No, I'd have to say I prefer _Momentary Sun_ if I had to pick any one at all." Sherlock replied, "There's just something about that painting…"

"Look at you, actually giving some thought to a piece of art." John said with a satisfied smirk.

"Of course I'm not, don't be ridiculous." Sherlock said hastily, waving John's comment off with a flick of his hand.

"Oh, I think you are."

"Really? And I suppose you think you made it happen?" Sherlock teased, tilting his head slightly and bringing his face close to John's.

"Absolutely I do." John smiled and the two kissed lightly a few times.

"Feeling up to walking again?" Sherlock asked, breaking off.

"I felt fine before, too."

"You are a truly terrible liar."

John smiled slightly and carefully took his leg off of Sherlock's. The two men suddenly became all business again as they got up from the bench and crossed the street to the flat in question.

They arrived at the building to find a doorman waiting behind the desk, casually flipping through a copy of _The Daily Mail_. Sherlock flashed him a filched badge that proclaimed he was DI Lestrade and explained the situation. Within five minutes, he and John were upstairs and carefully fitting a key in Nathans's lock.

"Remember," Sherlock was saying as the key jingled annoyingly, "this is not housebreaking. It's only housebreaking if we're not allowed in and we find some ulterior entrance."

Behind the detective, John rolled his eyes. He couldn't even begin to say how many times the two of them had done that. As if reading his thoughts, Sherlock smiled from his position at the door and added,

"Now, what I did during the 'Black Lotus' case with the fire escape…" he swung the door open nosily at this point, as if to accent his words, "_that_ was housebreaking."

He held the door open with one hand and gestured with the other one in an "after you" type way. John glanced around once and then ducked under the taller man's arm to get inside. He could swear he saw Sherlock smile at the movement.

For all the bravado of the man, Rhys Nathans's flat was not overly showy. The walls were painted with a stylish grey tinge and the modern wood furniture was well kept and tastefully arranged. A few paintings adorned the walls, whether they were stolen or not undetermined. The two men glanced around the flat for a few seconds before Sherlock pointed in the direction of the bedroom and hurried off to retrieve the NYC programme.

Alone for a few moments, John surveyed the area further. It seemed that when Scotland Yard busted Mr. Nathans, they caught him quite off guard. A glass of tepid water still stood on the kitchen table and a dog-eared book detailing rare Monet paintings was still laying open on the table. If Nathans had been so surprised by Lestrade and his ilk that he couldn't even close up a book, what else had he neglected to do before his arrest? John decided to investigate further while Sherlock did his thing with a magnifying glass in the bedroom.

John's search didn't take very long to yield him results. Near the door was a small table used for placing such miscellaneous items as keys, change, money…and his cell phone. Hoping that his winter gloves were enough to cover any finger prints, John was about to turn the phone on when the thing vibrated suddenly, jolting him completely. It looked like he didn't have to search hard after all, but what he found surprised him.

"John, this is absolutely perfect!" Sherlock was saying, leafing through the programme and a few photographs as he walked out of the room, "It's exactly as I suspected, the paintings at the New York exhibit were the same ones stolen from the safe. Which means that whoever stole the paintings and killed Isla had seen them at the exhibit…What? What did you find?"

"Look familiar?" John asked, holding the cell phone up for Sherlock to see.

On the screen was a text message to Nathans with a picture that sat inside Sherlock's phone, too. A picture of a blue-purple sky littered with stars…

"Whoever sent our friend here the message wants a price." John continued, pointing to a tiny row of text:

"_How much for this one do you suppose?"_ it said below the image.

"That son of a bitch…" Sherlock cursed quietly.

In was the first curse word John had ever heard Sherlock say, outside of a "hell" or a "damn" and it surprised him. Sherlock clearly didn't like being played.

"Come on," he was saying angrily, as he stormed out of the flat. "I say it's time we pay our friend another little visit. Besides, we owe him his keys back."

The keys jangled nosily as he locked up.

**_I figure I will catch equal parts love and hate for this chapter, lol! Ah, well, I hope you all enjoyed. Please take a few seconds to hop over to my profile and take the quiz I have posted there. The ending of "Cripple" is still pretty far off, never fear, but I would still love your opinions on what my next project should be! I hope to get ch. 9 up soon. Love y'all! - AB_**


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